Email Transport Rule Per-Recipient Condition

1. A system for applying one or more rules to an email prior to transport, the email having multiple recipients, said system comprising: a rules engine applying the one or more rules to the email prior to transport, said email addressed to at least two email recipients, and bifurcating said email into at least two email instances prior to transport while applying the one or more rules to the email on a per-rule basis, wherein the one or more rules are formatted according to a specified schema having the following XML syntax: <rule> <condition> <(mc1)><(rc1)>... <(mc)> ... <(rc)> </condition> <action/> </rule> wherein mc is a message condition and rc is a recipient condition and wherein mc 1 is a message condition and rc 1 is a recipient condition corresponding to mc 1 , wherein the recipient conditions and the message conditions are mixed in a single condition element within the specified schema; a processor configured to execute the rules engine, wherein the rules engine comprises computer-executable instructions to: apply a formatted rule of the one or more rules to said email addressed to the at least two email recipients prior to transport, such that the rules engine identifies a message condition in the email as indicated by the formatted rule, the message condition having a corresponding action, wherein the rules engine identifies a recipient condition in the email, said recipient condition corresponding to the message condition, the recipient condition specifying at least one email, wherein the result of the analysis with respect to message conditions is maintained in a cache for use in conjunction with evaluating each recipient condition; when the email addressed to the at least two email recipients meets the identified message condition of the formatted rule and meets the identified recipient condition of the formatted rule, bifurcate the email into at least two email instances prior to transport and execute the corresponding action on the email instances as indicated by the formatted rule prior to transport; proceed to a next formatted rule of the one or more rules prior to transport if a next formatted rule exists for the email instances; and thereafter transport each of the at least two email instances to each of the at least two email recipients.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the processor includes instructions to: identify one or more of a plurality of message conditions in the email prior to transport; identify one or more of a plurality of recipient conditions in the email prior to transport, each recipient condition corresponding to one of the message conditions, the recipient condition specifying email recipients; identify an action corresponding to the message conditions to be applied to the email prior to transport; and selectively apply the identified action to the email prior to transport when the email meets at least one of the message conditions and its corresponding recipient condition.

3. The system of claim 1 , where said rule engine maintains a list of recipients that are evaluated prior to transport and bifurcates the email into two or more email instances prior to transport in response to application of the schema, wherein the email instances are then advanced to the next rule if the next rule exists.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the bifurcating is optimized and only applied to email messages that have selected email instances to which an action applies.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein said rule engine optimizes bifurcation by grouping recipients and applies bifurcation selectively.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the corresponding action includes one or more of the following: stripping attachments, adding attachments, adding text, re-routing the email, adding or deleting recipients, rejecting the email, silently deleting the email, dropping the network connection, changing subject or other headers of the email, putting the email in quarantine, setting a spam confidence level, archiving the email, logging an event regarding the email, changing delivery priority of the email, and applying security templates.

7. A method for applying one or more rules to an email prior to transport, the email having multiple recipients, said method comprising: applying a formatted rule of the one or more rules to the email prior to transport, said one or more rules being formatted according to a specified schema, said email addressed to at least two email recipients, wherein said applying identifies a message condition in the email as indicated by the formatted rule, the message condition having a corresponding action, wherein said applying also identifies a recipient condition in the email, said recipient condition corresponding to the message condition, the recipient condition specifying at least one email recipient, wherein the recipient condition and the message condition are mixed in a single condition element within the formatted rule; when the email addressed to the at least two email recipients meets the message condition of the formatted rule and meets the identified recipient condition of the formatted rule, bifurcating the email into at least two email instances prior to transport and executing the corresponding action on said email as indicated by the formatted rule prior to transport, wherein the corresponding action on said email includes at least one of the following: stripping attachments, adding attachments, adding text, re-routing the email, adding or deleting recipients, rejecting the email, silently deleting the email, dropping the network connection, changing subject or other headers of the email, putting the email in quarantine, setting a spam confidence level, archiving the email, logging an event regarding the email, changing delivery priority of the email, and applying security templates; maintaining in a cache a result of the analysis with respect to message conditions for use in conjunction with evaluating each recipient condition; and proceeding to a next formatted rule of the one or more rules prior to transport if the next formatted rule exists for the email instances; wherein said method is executed by a rules engine for applying the one or more rules to the email prior to transport and bifurcating the email into at least two email instances on a per-rule basis prior to transport, based on the result of the execution of the one or more rules.

8. The method of claim 7 comprising: identifying one or more of a plurality of message conditions in the email prior to transport; identifying one or more of a plurality of recipient conditions in the email prior to transport, each recipient condition corresponding to one of the message conditions, the recipient condition specifying email recipients, wherein the recipient conditions are intermixed with the message conditions; identifying an action corresponding to the message conditions to be applied to the email instances prior to transport; and applying the identified action to the email instances prior to transport when the email meets at least one of the message conditions and its corresponding recipient condition.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the bifurcating is optimized and only applied to email messages that have selected bifurcated instances to which an action applies.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein said rules engine optimizes bifurcation by grouping recipients and applies bifurcation selectively.

11. The method of claim 7 wherein said rules engine maintains a list of recipients that are evaluated prior to transport and bifurcates the email into at least two email instances prior to transport in response to application of a schema, wherein bifurcated email instances are then advanced to the next rule prior to transport if the next rule exists.